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Posted on Jun 13, 2005 in Carlo D'Este, Front Page Features

What if D-Day Had Failed?

Do we take D-Day for granted? Has the passage of time made the D-Day landings seem as if they were always destined to succeed? Armchair General Consulting Historian and author Carlo D'Este examines how this important event was no sure thing.

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Posted on May 9, 2005 in Front Page Features, Stuff We Like

A Visit to Pearl Harbor

Getting There: Obviously you are going to have to make a significant effort to reach this distant battlefield, but if you find yourself in Hawaii for other reasons (as I did), this is the ONE area every military historian must visit.  Just make sure when you make your driving plans to the memorials you go to the USS Arizona memorial, and not just drive out to “Pearl Harbor.”  You may just end up at the military base, and get some light razzing from the Marines on guard duty who constantly have to turn away tourists like us who went to the wrong place! Try to arrive as early as possible to the USS Arizona memorial so you can get on one of the first launches out to the actual site.  Not only do you get to wait in the cool of the day as you watch bus after bus of tourists arrive after you, but you also have the best chance of running into a few of the old veterans...

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Posted on May 4, 2005 in Front Page Features, Stuff We Like

The Battle For Basing House – An English Civil War Re-Enactment

Organised by the Sealed Knot, this re-enactment took place on the grounds of Basing House itself, and featured some 200 men (and women!) in faithfully recreated uniforms and equipment from the era. Readers of ACG's previous article will recall that Basing House was a Royalist stronghold during the Civil War and that it was besieged by Parliamentarian forces and ultimately stormed and destroyed in October 1645.

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Posted on May 4, 2005 in Carlo D'Este, Front Page Features

The Triumph and Tragedy of George S. Patton, Jr.: The Slapping Incidents in Sicily

Feared by enemies, immortalized in movies, and one of the best generals ever; But one slap almost ended it all! Famed historian Carlo D'Este, who has recently joined the ACG team as Consulting Historian, provides this exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at George S. Patton, Jr.'s infamous "slapping incidents" as his inaugural contribution of what is a new monthly feature.

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Posted on Apr 21, 2005 in Books and Movies, Front Page Features

Downfall (aka Der Untergang) – Movie Review

Set during the final explosive days of the Third Reich, Downfall is an epic depiction of the fall of Nazi Germany and the end of Hitler's reign of terror in Europe. Written and Produced in Germany itself by Bernd Eichinger, the film is a graphic depiction of the collapse of law and order within Berlin, and the final headlong journey to insanity and suicide undertaken by the Nazi Fuhrer.

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